Copyright 2002-2014 Meetup, Inc.Wed, 25 Feb 2015 12:19:48 ESTsupport@meetup.com (Meetup)http://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/76747785/If you're a WordPress developer and you live in or near Ventura County, you might be happy to know that there's a really awesome meetup group up there just for WP devs.

Their next meetup is on March 4 and you can join and get all the details here: http://www.meetup.com/vcwordpress/events/219847383/

I've been known to make the drive up for their meetups occasionally, too!

Thanks to everyone who participated in our discussion and work groups at this month’s meetup! It’s the community and collaboration each of you contribute that makes our meetup group so awesome!

====================

December Meetup: Holiday Party and Girl Develop It Laptop Night

It's the holiday season, and we can't think of a better way to celebrate than by gathering with our favorite WordPress people, eating some delicious food, and getting into the spirit of giving with Girl Develop It!

We'll be collecting up your used laptops and tablets for use in Girl Develop It classes!Girl Develop It is a nonprofit organization that exists to provide affordable and accessible programs to women who want to learn web and software development through mentorship and hands-on instruction. We offer our classes throughout LA, and we'd love to reach an even broader audience by being able to provide laptops to our students who don't have the means to purchase their own.

]]>Mon, 08 Dec 2014 16:16:13 ESThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/73409602/What do you most want to learn about at September's meetup? Let us know in the poll: http://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/polls/1135502/

I know you won't want to miss WordCamp Los Angeles 2014, so be sure to head over to http://2014.la.wordcamp.org/ today at noon to get your tickets. Just $45 gets you three days of all things WordPress. Just a sample of what's included for $45:

Foundation Friday workshops that include a Beginner Workshop, a Design Workshop, and a Freelance Business Workshop

Saturday Sessions that cover many different topics for all levels - security, attracting new clients with your blog, content strategy, wrangling spam, accessibility, selling plugins, building multilingual sites, WordPress for enterprise, and more!

Saturday Night After Party including prizes, nibbles, drinks and tons of fun

Tshirt designed by Greg Douglas of Premium Interactive

Lunch and snacks all three days - seriously, just this is worth $45 alone!

Happiness Bar will be running all day Saturday where you can stop by for one-on-one help from WordPress experts

Swag, swag, swag from our amazing sponsors

...and more!

Seriously, peeps, this is the best $45 you could spend in WordPress land. More info about WordCamp, including some of our speakers, notes on Foundation Friday, and more at our site: http://2014.la.wordcamp.org/

See you there!

]]>Mon, 14 Jul 2014 13:39:44 EDThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/71135782/OneJust getting started with WordPress and not sure what to do first? Natalie's teaching an intro to WordPress workshop tomorrow (Tuesday) night at General Assembly downtown. Just 30 bucks to attend. Sign up here: https://generalassemb.ly/education/getting-started-with-wordpress/los-angeles/6247

TwoBuilt something cool and awesome with WordPress that you'd love to show off? Let us know so we can include you as a speaker at our upcoming meetup: Unique uses of WordPress. Just respond to this email if you've got something to share. More info on our meetup here: http://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/events/189820092/

ThreeJust a couple more days until we start picking speakers for WordCamp Los Angeles! If you've been putting off applying, it's time to get a move on! http://2014.la.wordcamp.org/call-for-speakers/

We took a vote and Analytics won. Max Goldberg will be presenting on analytics - what it is, why you should use it, and how to use the data you're collecting to make decisions. Plus, lots more, like integrating with Google AdWords and Google Webmaster tools. You won't want to miss it.

And, as WordCamp LA is coming up in September, Suzette Franck will talk on being a speaker at WordCamp! We'll be opening up those speaker applications soon, so you'll be all ready - how to choose a topic, how to prepare, etc.

See you tomorrow night - 3rd Wednesday of each month!

Thanks!Natalie and NoelYour SoCalWP Organizers

]]>Tue, 20 May 2014 14:09:08 EDThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/68911322/Our number one most requested topic for our meetup on Wednesday, May 21st is Analytics. Are you an Analytics ninja? Have some tips and tricks you can share on getting the most from analytics - plugins, sales funnels, bounce rates, page views, uniques, etc?

Respond to this email and let us know! If you know someone who might be ideal for the task, let us know about that too!

Thank you, and see you next Wednesday the 21st for our meetup on analytics.

We want to present on topics that you’re the most interested in learning about! Please vote on the topic for our May meetup here.

Wednesday, May 21st, 7pm @ Kleverdog Coworking

====================

PressLabs: WordPress Coworking

WordPress workers unite! Bring your laptops, coffee, notebooks, and something to work on (a project, something you'd like to learn, an experiment you'd like to try, etc.) This is an experiment - we know many WordPress workers work at home and miss out on opportunities for collaboration, so let's try WordPress-focused coworking. If it's a success, we'll repeat monthly.

Feel free to bring friends, coworkers, your mentor, your employees, or anyone at all along with you. Check it out here.

]]>Wed, 23 Apr 2014 01:01:15 EDThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/67166472/The people have spoken and we'll be discussing WordPress performance at our next meetup. So, we're looking for speakers - do you know a few tricks for getting WordPress sites to run faster that you'd be willing to share with everyone? Just reply to this email and let us know.

Or, if you know of someone else who'd be ideal, let us know about that too so we can get in touch with them!

]]>Thu, 27 Mar 2014 00:29:41 EDThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/66775622/Hey folks! Our next meetup is happening April 16th at Demand Media in Santa Monica. What topic/topic(s) would you most like to discuss that night? We set up a poll here: http://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/polls/1039012/

We've run into some trouble finding a venue for our next meetup, scheduled for Wednesday, February 19. This is the month that we'd normally be in Santa Monica or somewhere on the Westside.

We can't use CoLoft, and it looks like we can't use Cross Campus either. Since we're going to be discussing plugins, the meetup will probably be rather large, at least 70-80 people, so we need a big space.

If anyone has some ideas or connections to a space that might welcome us, please do let us know! We'll keep working on it too!

]]>Sun, 26 Jan 2014 15:49:33 ESThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/63857772/We'll have our first meetup of 2014 tomorrow evening at Kleverdog Coworking. Before we get started on our topic for the night, I'll present the results from the survey and share our plans for where our group is heading in 2014.

We are relying on this survey to tell us which days of the week are best for meetups, what topics we should cover, what meetup activities we should do, what speakers we should invite, and more. We'd love to hear from you if you haven't already completed the survey.

Head on over and fill it out. We'll present the findings and our plans for 2014 at our upcoming meetup on Tuesday. We'll be using your feedback from the survey to choose our topics, meetup days, speakers, etc. for 2014 so here's a great chance to have a say! http://socalwp.org/survey

See you Tuesday!

--Natalie and NoelYour SoCal WP organizers

]]>Fri, 17 Jan 2014 14:47:39 ESThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/63544372/If you've already completed the survey, then we want to give you a big, huge THANK YOU. We love hearing from you and knowing what we're doing right and wrong.

If you haven't completed the survey yet, please do so. We'd love to know how we're doing and what we could do better. Have you found our meetups helpful? Haven't been able to make it because Tuesday is the worst day for you? Not enough content that's relevant for you? Have trouble getting to our meetup spaces? We'd love to know what you think and how we can make the group better.

This is YOUR meetup group - every bit of feedback we get helps make the group more useful for you. Thank you!!!

We're looking to hear from you about our meetup group, what you like and didn't from last year, what you'd like to see and more. So , please, take 10 minutes, head on over to our annual survey and share your opinions and ideas with us:

http://socalwp.org/survey

Have you been unable to come to a meetup because the 3rd Tuesday of the month is the worst possible time for you?

Are you looking to learn more about some WordPress topics that we haven't covered?

Are you tired of talking about plugins?

Do you want to know more about social media?

Did you absolutely love that meetup about themes?

Did you think the Happiness Bar was the worst idea ever?

Should all meetups have food and drink?

Tell us all of this and more in our survey! We promise to use every bit of feedback to make 2014 the best year yet for our group!

Thank you for you support, time, energy and attention. And happy new year to each and every one of you!

SoCalWP is YOUR meetup group, so we want to know who you are and what you want from this group! Please take a few minutes to complete the 2013 SoCalWP Survey so we can structure our meetups to best serve our members. Are there certain topics you’d like us to cover? Day of the week that works best for meetups? Let us know!

Got an old website kicking around that was built in iWeb, FrontPage, Dreamweaver, PageMill, or even just plain old HTML that you'd love to bring out of the dark ages and into WordPress? C'mon out to our next meetup where we'll be reviewing techniques for moving those old sites into WordPress and getting everything up to date, even if you're not adept at writing code.

The Apple Store on the 3rd Street Promenade as graciously offered to host us this month. There's plenty of parking nearby and weeknights this time of year are pretty quiet in the area.

Bring your questions and concerns and we'll do our best to get them addressed!

Hope you can join us tomorrow evening for a meetup of community presentations. Our Show n Tell type meetups are always among the favorites - come on out and support the members of our community who share their projects, plugins, tips and tricks with you.

And, if you missed your chance to get a ticket to WordCamp LA, then be sure to attend, because we'll be raffling off two tickets to WordCamp LA! Must be present to win.

RSVP now!

See you tomorrow!Natalie and NoelYour SoCalWP organizers

]]>Mon, 16 Sep 2013 19:19:47 EDThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/57711302/If you've been holding out on deciding to purchase your ticket until you saw the schedule of sessions and speakers, then wait no more! Our schedule of AWESOMENESS is now available. Check it out!

Speaking of tshirts, you'll want to get your tickets purchased by midnight on Monday, September 2nd to guarantee that we'll have a tshirt available for you in your desired size. Order your tickets after that, and it's a gamble.

Tickets are available through September 14th - after that, you lose your chance to attend! Be sure to get your tickets soon!

Huge thanks to all our Happiness Bartenders at this past weeks' meetup! We had a great time joining forces with the WordPress Santa Monica Meetup group. Make sure to join us at WordCamp LA 2013 for our next Happiness Bar event!

====================

September Meetup: Topic and speaker(s) to be announced soon.

Tuesday, September 17th, 7 pm @ Kleverdog CoworkingRSVP's will open on August 27th at 7pm

====================

WordCamp Los Angeles

We are proud to bring you WordCamp LA on September 21-22, 2013. WordCamps are an amazing deal at just $40 for two jam-packed days of sessions with experts, panels, helpful information and free lunch (both days) and a free t-shirt thrown in for good measure. You won't want to miss it! Tickets are on sale now and going fast, so be sure to get yours: http://2013.la.wordcamp.org/register

Tickets are now available for WordCamp Los Angeles 2013! Head over here to get yours now:

http://2013.la.wordcamp.org/registration/

Tickets are just $40 - you get admission to both days, lunch both days, and a tshirt! You're practically guaranteed to learn something new and useful at WordCamp whether you're an absolute beginner, an accomplished blogger, a designer, or a developer.

Hope to you see you there!--Natalie and NoelYour SoCalWP Meetup organizers, who are also helping with WordCamp

Just a note to let you know that tickets for WordCamp Los Angeles 2013 will be going on sale at noon on Monday, August 19, 2013. Other WordCamps in Southern California this year have sold out rather quickly, so be sure to head on over and get yours as soon as you can!

Once again - WordCamp LA will be happening September 21 and 22. You can get more info and buy your tickets here: http://2013.la.wordcamp.org/

Huge thanks to our speakers at this past weeks' meetup. We had a great time joining forces with the LAdobe Users’ Group. Links to slides/tools:• Francois’ video for Responsive WordPress Themes with Adobe Edge Reflow• Suzette’s slides for Troubleshooting with Adobe Edge Inspect• Video of Suzette's presentation====================

August Meetup: Happiness Bar!Bring your WordPress questions and issues for some one-on-one time with WordPress experts who are there to help! Depending on attendance, a strict time limit may be enforced. Not sure which plugin to use for something? Not sure how to display the information you want? Having trouble getting your slider to work? Let us help!Tuesday, August 20th, 7 pm @ Satellite Santa MonicaRSVP's will open on July 30th at 7pm.====================

WordCamp Los AngelesWe are proud to bring you WordCamp LA on September 21-22, 2013. WordCamps are an amazing deal at just $40 for two jam-packed days of sessions with experts, panels, helpful information and free lunch and a free tshirt thrown in for good measure. You won't want to miss it! But we need your help! Here's how you can help make it great!• What would you like to see at the Sunday Sessions? Vote here• Any topics or speakers or activities you'd love to see? Let us know here• Got something awesome you want to share with the attendees? Apply to be a speaker hereNot sure if WordCamp is right for you? Find out here

Just a note to let you know that plans are finalized for our next meetup, happing Tuesday evening. This is our second annual joint meetup with the LAdobe Users' Group. We'll be looking at some Adobe tools that can help you out when developing and designing responsive or mobile WordPress themes.

François Mark will joining us virtually from Mauritius to show how he uses Adobe Edge Reflow to create responsive themes without having to write much code. Suzette Franck will take the stage next to show how Adobe Edge Inspect can be used to test and troubleshoot your theme on mobile devices.

It's going to be a fun and educational night - especially if you've been wondering just how to go about developing responsive themes or how to test and make sure your site is working correctly on mobile devices.

Wordpress is turning 10 on Monday, May 27th! Since that's a holiday, we're banding together with the 15 other WordPress meetup groups throughout Southern California to bring you the largest live streaming party of WordPressers in the history of WordPress. We'll be having tacos from Chronic Tacos, chips and salsa, margaritas, treats, games, a photo booth, a DJ, a piñata, and lots of prizes from:

For our June meetup, we present a special event: The Economy of WordPress with a special sponsorship by Media Temple. Our presenters that evening will present on all the different ways you can make money in the WordPress community, including membership sites, developing sites for clients, providing training, selling plugins and themes, ecommerce, and more.

]]>Fri, 24 May 2013 16:53:39 EDThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/53142842/Yes, WordPress fans, WordCamp Orange County sold out in just a few hours. But your fearless SoCal WP Organizers have two ways you can win a ticket!

Contest #1:

We are lucky enough to be in possession of an extra ticket to WordCamp Orange County. We'll be raffling that off at our upcoming meetup on May 21st. A small wait list has formed, but there's still a great chance you'll get in if you RSVP. RSVP here. [note: if you're on the yes list and can't make it, please be considerate and update your RSVP]

Contest #2:

Chris Lema featured one of your organizers, Natalie, on his blog today. You can read the post here. Inside that post, you'll find the details for a Twitter contest for one free WordCamp Orange County ticket.

====================

Best of luck to you and we hope to see you at WordCamp Orange County. Natalie's presenting, along with Chris Lema, Lucy Beer, Brad Williams, Chris Ford, Steve Zehngut, Alex Vasquez, Dre Armeda, John Hawkins and lots of other WordPress rockstars.

Thanks to all of you who braved traffic to make it out to our meetup this past Tuesday evening. We had lots of awesome speakers who presented lots of awesome plugins. Here are the plugins that we chatted about with links:

Our May meetup will be held Tuesday, May 21st at Kleverdog Coworking. We'll be talking about moving WordPress - how to move from a WordPress.com blog to one you host yourself, how to move your self-hosted WordPress site from one server/domain name to another, and how to move a local copy of WordPress to the server. RSVP's will open at 7pm on April 30th, so watch your email for the announcement.

================================

WordPress Meetups

We've got 16 WordPress meetup groups throughout Southern California. Get the latest meetups, workshops, conferences and wordcamps at socalwp.org. Here are some other upcoming meetups:

We wanted to start off by sending out tons of thank yous. Thanks to all of you who came out to our meetup last night. Thanks to Kleverdog Coworking for hosting our group. Thanks to WP Engine, OS Training and Woo Themes for their support and for providing us with pizza, drinks, tshirts, and stickers. Suzette wrote up a really nice recap of the meetup on her blog: http://suzettefranck.com/so-cal-wordpress-users-group-meetup-recap/ so be sure to check that out.

What makes our group so awesome is our community - people who are willing to slog through evening traffic to come and sit with others and learn something new about WordPress. Those who are willing to lend a helping hand when someone's stuck, or give a bit of advice to somebody who's just getting started. We're so grateful for the community that has grown up around WordPress here in Southern California.

And thanks of course to Marieke who drove up from Fullerton just to speak to us last night and share her knowledge of social media. I know from the accolades pouring in on meetup today that so many of you learned a lot and are excited to put your new knowledge to work.

Since most of our meetups are targeted at an intermediate-level WordPress user, we started up two new groups: WordPress 101 for absolute beginners and Advanced WordPress for advanced users and developers. Please check out those groups - we'll be announcing meetups for them soon!

Our next meetup will be happening Tuesday, April 16th at Cross Campus in Santa Monica. We'll be covering WordPress plugins. If you've got a favorite plugin that you'd like to share with everyone, you'll get your change to tell us about it when you RSVP. RSVP's for that meetup will open at 7pm on March 26th.

Coming up on April 6th at Cross Campus in Santa Monica, your very own organizer, Natalie MacLees, will be presenting a WordPress 101 Workshop. If you're just getting started with WordPress and are looking for a quick and easy way to learn everything you need to know, this workshop is what you've been looking for.

Right now, we're offering a special 25% discount off the normal ticket price just for members of this meetup group. Head over to EventBrite and enter discount code SOCALWP-MEMBER at checkout to get your 25% discount. Also note that we've got an early bird discount in effect through March 16th - you'll save an additional $50 just for signing up early.

Thank you, and hope to see all of our beginners out at the workshop April 6th to get up and running with WordPress.

Thanks to everyone who made it out to Cross Campus Tuesday evening for our 'Managing Multiple WordPress sites' meetup. We had four awesome speakers who presented four different approaches to managing multiple WP installs. Here are the slides and info the speakers presented:

Our March meetup will happen Tuesday, March 19th at Kleverdog Coworking downtown. Marieke Hensel will be presenting on Social Media and WordPress. We'll have more details on that meetup posted to our meetup page shortly. RSVPs are now open.

====================

Upcoming WordPress Meetups

We've got quite a few WordPress meetups in SoCal. Here are the upcoming meetups:

WordPress Advanced Developer CourseMarch 18th-April 12thA four-week course designed to teach you WordPress development, from building themes, to developing plugins, to extending WordPress and setting up an optimal local development environment.

WP 101 IntensiveApril 6thA one-day intensive course designed to get you up and running with WordPress. Everything you need to know to create and manage your first WordPress site. Includes breakfast and lunch!

Last night's meetupThank you so much to all of you who braved traffic and came out to Kleverdog to join us for our Child Themes presentation and plans for 2013 last night. Thanks to Joe Chellman for the awesome introduction to Child Themes. And thanks again going out to our sponsors for last night's meetup: Kleverdog Coworking and WooThemes. Without our sponsors, our events wouldn't be possible.

Joe had a technical glitch with recording a screencast of his presentation, but he has promised to re-record his presentation and get the video out to our group. Isn't he nice? As soon as he's got that ready, we'll get that out to all of you.

February's meetupTues, February 26, 7pm at CrossCampus http://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/events/97606432/(RSVP's open January 26th)At our February meetup, we're going to cover four (4!!) different ways to manage multiple WordPress sites. Getting multiple sites set up is deceptively easy, but you soon find yourself mired in a mess of WordPress, theme and plugin updates, so we'll take a look at some different tools for keeping all of your WordPress sites updated, fresh, and secure.======================

February Volunteers Needed!We need volunteer superheroes for the following for our February meetup:

Speakers: Seeking people with experience using InfiniteWP or ManageWP. Or an interest in trying one of them out for the next month in exchange for a free license!

Setup: 2 people to arrive by 6pm to set up chairs, the stage, etc.

Checkin Desk: 1 person to arrive by 6:30pm to man (or woman) the check-in desk at the front door

Takedown: 2 people to stay approximately 30 mins after the meetup to take down the chairs, stage, etc.

Video: 1 person to record the presentations to video so we can make them available to everyone afterward

Just respond to this email if you are willing to be a volunteer superhero and help out.======================

Help! I need a website for my small businessSaturday, January 26, 10am, Kleverdog AcademieMonday, January 28, 10am, Kleverdog Academiehttp://www.kleverdogacademie.com/You know that you should have a website for your small business, but it’s so hard to know where to get started – should you hire someone to build it for you or try and tackle it yourself? How much should you budget? How do you find someone to hire? Which tools are the best to use? In this two-hour session, you’ll get all the information you need to make an informed decision and get started on the path to having a successful small business website – whether or not you should do it yourself, which tools are ideal, how to go about hiring someone to help, and how to successfully work within any budget, even if your budget is no budget at all.

WordPress 101 IntensiveSaturday, March 2nd, 9am-5pm, ConnectVenturaSunday, March 3rd, 9am-5pm, Connect Venturahttp://iclasses.com/2012/12/wordpress-workshop-intensive-workshop/Everything you need to get up and running with WordPress in a convenient one-day format. We'll guide you step-by-step through setting up your own WordPress website or blog and will step you through themes, widgets, plugins, adding images and galleries, including video and audio, and more. Breakfast and lunch provided. $100 early bird discount when you register by February 9th!

======================

Mini MeetupsWe are looking to get the following Mini Meetups up and running. If you'd like to volunteer just respond and let us know!

If you're heading to one of these events, head over to our meetup page and RSVP 'yes' to one of the special meetup events we've created. We can use that space then to stay in touch with one another, arrange carpools or shared taxis from the airport, and we'll also put together some kind of special dinner, lunch or other gathering during each just for our members who are in attendance.

We've turned off automatic email reminders for both of those so that those of you who aren't attending won't be bombarded with email reminders from meetup.com. If you aren't going, this is the last you'll hear from us on the topic. :-)

Hope to see you in Las Vegas or Phoenix!

--Natalie and NoelYour SoCalWP organizers

P.S. Your very own SoCalWP organizer, Natalie, will be speaking 3 times(!) at WordCamp Phoenix - teaching the WordPress 301 JavaScript class on Friday, giving a talk on getting a new WordPress site started the right way on Saturday, and also teaching WordPress for Kids on Sunday morning.

]]>Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:41:50 ESThttp://www.meetup.com/SoCalWP/messages/46015072/Huge thank you's going out to everybody who braved the cold, wind and traffic to make it to Kleverdog Coworking tonight for a great meetup event.

Don't forget that if you weren't among the lucky winners for the Blog World Expo tickets, the organizers of that conference have generously offered our group a 20% discount on any and all passes for the conference with discount code SOCALWP20. Register online at http://nmxlive.com/.

And lots of thanks going out to our sponsors. Without them, our events wouldn't be possible. Please take a moment to thank them publicly via Twitter, Facebook or your blog.

BlogWorld New Media Expo is the largest event for bloggers and content creators. I've posted more information about this conference on our group's message board. The organizers of this conference have graciously provided us with a 20% discount off any conference pass. Use discount code

SOCALWP20

when you register at http://NMXLive.com. Pricing will be going up after 12/14, so register soon for an even better price on your conference passes.

Live Streaming and Video for upcoming meetup

We are once again going to attempt to live stream and record the meetup. This is a free service that we offer without guarantee. We'll call this our Alpha 0.2 attempt at getting our content and meetup happenings out to those of you who can't attend. We'll be streaming to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/socal-wp.